


History

by samanthalo



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Love, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samanthalo/pseuds/samanthalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If I am to love someone, he thought with the gnawed nub of a carrot protruding from his chapped lips, why shouldn't it be a girl like the ice, crystalline in appearance, the strength of diamonds? - A somewhat artistic look backward at Kristoff's ideas of love (until Anna came along of course).</p>
            </blockquote>





	History

There was a girl at the market the color of late autumn snow and Kristoff loved to watch her as she tended her stall, ripe with succulent fruits, crimson-red apples and blood-stained strawberries. Her skin was pale like the morning horizon, bright with promised sun, and she had hair so platinum he could compare it to nothing he had yet seen. To his young mind, expanding to fit this new stage of his life, this awkward adolescence none of his troll brethren seemed to have experienced but knew quite a fair bit about, she was like the daybreak, the first crack of light over the mountain. She was not the only blonde girl at the market, but she was the one with the most hoariness, her pallidity perhaps a detriment to some, a captivating quality to him for he so loved the snow and the ice that he could not help be drawn to it when it was so perfectly encapsulated in her skin, her hair, her eyes.

_If I am to love someone_ , he thought with the gnawed nub of a carrot protruding from his chapped lips, _why shouldn't it be a girl like the ice, crystalline in appearance, the strength of diamonds?_ And he had seen her strength, that quiet ferocity when one of the little troublemaking schoolboys would try to sneak a raspberry into his pocket, or when one of the visiting sailors would linger too long, place himself too much in front of her goods. Her mouth was quick, her words sharp. If armed, she would be twice as dangerous for, when riled, she moved with the clarity and grace of someone much older. He had watched always from a distance, always with his lanky form pitched into his sled, the splinters of the worn wood pressing harmlessly into the hide of his parka, admiring those moments with a fierce devotion. She remained unaware of him, always busy with business, cobalt eyes always on the merchandise and the market, needle-thin fingers depositing and dispensing coins between open palms and apron pockets.

Once, Kristoff had managed to drudge up the courage to speak with her but it hadn't gone at all how he thought it might and he'd run back off to his sled with his tail betwixt his skinny legs. He'd asked, quite stupidly, if she had any carrots, because his reindeer only ate carrots, not those sugary sweet apples or those syrupy strawberries, and because his reindeer only ate carrots, he only ate carrots. She had patiently let him continue until he'd worn himself out, before she'd patiently replied that her family did not farm vegetables, only fruit, and that he'd have more luck at the vendor across the square, with the rather large hand-painted sign advertising just the very item he desired. He'd laughed it off airily. But when he'd turned to the vegetable seller, his face was all degrees of storm-filled and angry.

But love her he was sure of and he'd explained his longing to his mother during one of those strange nights when he was home in the glen but it was quiet and he was lonely. Kristoff hadn't meant for his mother to find out, but he was talking to Sven under the Borealis and it had all just spilled from his lips like water from a fountain. _I love her, she's perfect,_ he spewed, heedless of curious ears other than his reindeer, _I wonder what her name is, if she likes to ice skate, if she knows how to drive a sleigh. Maybe she lives close by. Or maybe she lives in town. She's never bought ice before. What if she doesn't like ice? She has to like ice, she looks like ice._ And he'd gone on and on until his mother finally interrupted.

_Kristoff, my boy_ , she cooed, a reticent smile on her face, a loving but very heavy hand upon his head, _what are you going on about down here by yourself_? She'd asked him if he wouldn't rather be sleeping, if his bruises had healed from his last harvesting trip, and Kristoff had taken all of this in rather tolerant stride until he could no longer wait and he'd nearly cried out all that was bothering him.

_I love her,_ he practically wailed, _but she doesn't even know who I am. She never looks at me, she never notices me, why do I feel like this_? His mother seemed shocked, at first, but surprise was not something the trolls excelled at and in a few short moments she was trying to contain her laughter.

_How can you love her if you don't even know her name? You can't love someone until you know them, dear_. She did not realize it but her words devastated him. If you couldn't love someone until you knew them, why did he feel so strongly about this market girl? Why was he so sure that if she would just look up and through the throng of people around them that she'd see all she needed to see and leave behind her colorful world of fruit and orchards for his glacial paradise?

If all things in life went as planned, perhaps his story would have ended differently. He'd fallen asleep, eyes puffy with the effort of holding back stubborn tears, with the resolve to make his love a reality. The next time he brought his ice blocks for sale he'd buy an apple with his earnings. He'd munch it lazily at her stall, perched just to the side so passerbys would still be inclined to stop, and he'd ask her about all the things he longed to know about her. Her responses, crisp and clear, resounded in his dreams as he slept. _Oh, but I love ice and reindeer_ , he imagined her giggling, shyly pulling her long tresses behind a reddening ear, _if only someone would take me away from this land of heat and summer_.

It was a month before he'd managed to scour up enough ice for a market visit. The season was ending. All the other harvesters were whispering ominously about the shortening days, how the golden hue of summer sunsets were thinning to the sinking autumn nightfalls. _Oh, the chill is in the air_ , they'd tiredly shout as the wagons were loaded, horses pawing and nickering restlessly in their hitches, _pack the ice tightly, lads, for Lady Winter sees fit to send us home again!_ Kristoff did not join in their joy. Ostracized to the outskirts of the lake where the ice was harder to glean, rough and sandy, he usually watched their glee with hidden brackishness. Another winter in the glen, another winter away from the lakes. But this day he whistled to himself their traveling songs and thought with delight how there was finally enough blocks in the back of the old sleigh to follow their trail into town, to the market, to the girl.

He arrived in the early afternoon and found his normal spot otherwise occupied. Glowering at the old clockmaker and his wobbling table, Kristoff had settled for an open spot on the curb. He wasn't directly across from the girl's stall but he could still see her. She looked bored and wan behind the vibrant bushels and crates of produce, her whiteness a stark contrast to the veritable rainbow surrounding them. She hadn't changed much during their time apart, except perhaps she seemed a bit taller, maybe not as interested in the thriving bustle around them. _Stay here_ , he whispered to Sven, eyes bright as he sidled over to her stall, completely forgetting in his nervous excitement that he had come to sell ice, not buy fruit.

_Hi_ , he said with a wide smile that pushed his warm cheeks up against the bottom of his eyes, _can I have an apple_? The girl eyed him for just a moment, then waved a hand over the apples between them.

_Which one? I'm not going to pick for you._ She said shortly. His smile faded slightly as he looked down at the fruit in question, suddenly unsure of how exactly to pick a ripe apple, what hue was best, what consistency. Did you tap it quickly to hear how it echoed on the inside? Did you just go ahead and take a bite, like you did with carrots? He was beginning to lose himself in his panic, the palms of his hands going clammy as they worried the rough-hewn stitches on his mittens. The girl's eyes dipped down to his nervously moving appendages and then back up to his face, growing more and more flushed by the second. _Do you need help?_ She asked without accusation.

_No, of course not,_ he said, perhaps a bit too quickly, grabbing the first apple on top. There was a noticeable dent in its bulbous peak where the red skin didn't gleam but the rest of it looked fine. He dug around inside of the pocket his mother had sewn into his pants for payment only to groan as he felt his finger slide through a popped seam. The girl continued to watch, wispy strands of her flaxen mane catching the breeze, distracting him even more when she'd caught those strands and pulled them back with a ribbon. He could see the pointy bones of her elbow pressing against chapped, flaky flesh, the tendons and muscles moving beneath her pale neck as she worked to secure her hair, turning her head this way and that until finally it was the way she wanted it. She brought her arms back down, propping her keen chin in the cupped palm of her hand, and finally managed a somewhat cynical smile.

_Are you sure?_ She challenged, her voice growing a bit lower, her eyes flashing as she leaned forward. Kristoff fought to maintain composure and he struggled to remember exactly what he was going to say. Clever little quips came to mind, cool ways to brush off the fact that he'd lost all the money in his pocket due to a popped seam, how quaint of him really, and if she'd just wait right there he'd be back later with enough to pay for the apple, and in the meantime, how long had she been selling fruit and had she ever thought of taking a trip up the mountainside? None of that formed in his mouth. Instead, he'd merely laughed, loudly, set the apple back down with its family and basically ran back to his sled.

So embarrassed, so humiliated he was that he very nearly failed to notice more than half of his harvest had gone missing. Sven apologetically grumbled in his harness while Kristoff whirled around the square, looking for his lost goods, but whoever had taken it upon themselves to lift the blocks from his sleigh were long gone. There wasn't even a dripping trail to identify the direction they might have went. It was the last time he ever left Sven and his wares alone and it was the last time he'd ever approached the market girl. He never found out her name, though years of spending time in the market gave him clues to what it might have been. Sometimes he would hear someone call out for a Nora and her head would pop up from the crates. Other times, he thought he caught a Marie, or a Mary, or a Laura, but he could never be sure if she was responding or just being nosy. The longing he felt for her dissipated as the years went by, as she grew less and less interested in being at the market and more and more fascinated by playing around with other girls her age.

Once, maybe twice, she'd walked by his sleigh and perceived him there. While still certainly awkward, the adolescence was quickly bleeding from him and, where formerly he had been just a tall, gangly boy with arms and legs too long to properly work, now he was coming into his body. Often-used muscles were gathering bulk around his shoulders and his arms. He was easily the biggest boy in the market, maybe even the strongest, though he didn't boast. He didn't need to. Each season, his harvest grew bigger and bigger until he and Sven were hauling as much as their sleigh could handle. Business, while not great, had never been better and he found himself slowly beginning to put together the puzzle pieces of his life.

She too was blossoming, but in the way girls do when ripening into women. Instead of growing taller and wider, she was filling out the cuspidated knobs of her elbows and knees, the bodice of her gown, the length of her skirts. Kristoff couldn't help but note the flare of her hips when she sauntered past, porcelain face shadowed by a stiff bonnet, just the tip of her long, aquiline nose peeking into the sun, blonde mop tamed back into a thin, perfectly plaited braid. She'd never been a round girl, both in figure or face, all pointed edges, but in pubescence that ungainly sharpness had been polished into refined, classic features like the paintings he'd caught sight of in the gallery just beside the square.

There was no denying she was an attractive girl, but that ferocity that had captivated him years ago had hardened into a cruel and quiet savagery. When she and her gossiping friends would spot him pulling off his parka in the warmth of the Arendelle sun, they would close into themselves, huddle close together and titter like little birds at a birdbath. Kristoff imagined her retelling the story of their last encounter, what a fool he'd been, how he didn't even know how to pick a ripe apple. He'd catch them glancing his way once or twice, casting wary looks at Sven and then at the state of his sled, his clothes, his hair. Their laughter hurt someplace deep inside in a way he hadn't quite felt before. It made him feel even more alone and distant than he already was, not only on the outskirts of the lake, but on the borders of the market, the butt of jokes for teenage girls with nothing better to do. Crunching into the orange length of his carrot, he frowned out into the distance, eyes passing by the towering sentinel of the closed up castle and out over the bay to the ocean where he found momentary comfort in the idea of the ice floes and the chilled water.

It wasn't just the girls in the market buzzing over him. The newest generation of ice harvesters had joined their fathers that year, strapping 16 year olds with heads and mouths a fair bit bigger than their biceps. Perhaps it was his hard-learned, well-practiced ease on the ice that led to their disapproval. Perhaps it was the simple reason that Kristoff was not like them. He had no father on the wagons, no solid history to tie himself to their chain of lakes, this supposed claim on the mountain's bowls of glittering gems. An older, wiser Kristoff would think back on the many reasons that children are so mean to other children and understand that sometimes they needed no reason at all. But a young, lonely Kristoff did not understand. It was enough with the girls' amusement haunting his heels in the market, though they were at least easy to ignore. The harvesting boys would only allow him to neglect their jeers for so long.

He wasn't a fighter, though he very easily could have been with his height and his mass only increasing with his age, but he did try to retaliate when they cornered him one late afternoon. It had ended with his nose bloodied and his knuckles gashed open and a painful bruise beneath his ribs where one of the little bastards had hauled off and kicked him when another had pinned him on his back. He'd punched one of them, maybe two. It was hard to see when he'd rolled over onto his knee, pushed himself up despite the swimming sensation in his head. They'd run off quickly when someone called, offering threats if he tried to follow them, if he thought he was getting off easy. Swiping at his nose, he grabbed for his hat and stumbled to his feet, pushing roughly at Sven's furry neck when he'd come to help. After that, he was sure to avoid the boys, and, after continuous practice, everyone else altogether.

He forgot about girls, too, or as much as a boy his age could forget. Trips to the market were strictly business. He sold his ice and went along his way, never stopping to talk, not bothering to catch anyone's eye. By his 19th birthday, the market girl had vanished and so had her friends, though there were others to replace them. These younger girls were even more annoying, if that were possible, and Kristoff wielded his skilled brashness adeptly whenever they would try to approach him with anything other than an offer to buy. He found life becoming easier the more distant he became from the world around him, easily convincing himself that Sven was really all he needed, as far as company was concerned, and that people meant nothing but trouble.

Love became something that existed in the background, some loose abstract idea that Kristoff didn't see the value in bothering himself with. His mother's words all those years ago echoed in his head as he watched woman after woman pass by him in the market, enigmas in dresses and boots, clutching baskets, wearing kerchiefs, each one a little island unto themselves even when linked arm-in-arm with another. _If I am to love a girl_ , he thought one night, sleigh speeding up through the tree line, spitting snow in its wake, bouncing behind Sven's surging gait, _I have to know her and I don't want to know anyone anymore_. The only thing he wished to know was ice, the adventure of the harvest, how every day could be different, each morning bringing a new pattern of fractals to the pellucid glaze over the water. Settling in next to Sven's warm body beside a dying fire night after night, he looked up at the Borealis and could not imagine life being any better.

Life passed like trees along the mountain path, a blur of jumbled colors and events moving too fast to see any detail, the little moments of beauty between the branches utterly lost. He was completely unaware of time as it moved around him, filled the spaces between harvests, cold nights, the ever infrequent trips back to the glen because he couldn't stand to field questions from his mother about the most embarrassing subjects. No, he hadn't washed his parka in weeks, where was he supposed do that? Yes, he knew it smelled, but who was she to talk when her clothes consisted of dank moss? No, he hadn't met a girl, where was he going to meet a girl in the mountains, they didn't exactly pop out of the ground like rabbits, did they? Yes, he was sure there were perfectly nice girls out there, and that was all very well and good, but he didn't need a girl, he just needed Sven, his sled, and the open air, the limitless wilderness of the mountain and its lakes. He avoided the glen during marriages, or after a new birth, to save himself the trouble of his mother's nagging, her strange desire to see him attached to another living being.

_Kristoff, love is what makes life special!_ She told him when he'd accidentally arrived home in the middle of a wedding feast. _You should try to find someone, it's easy, all you have to do is open up and talk to people! You never know who you'll meet!_

_Yeah, love happens when you least expect it!_ He hid his scoff behind a mitten and offered a lame excuse as to why his visit would have to be cut short, because for as much as he enjoyed his alone time, the freedom to come and go as he pleased, there was that small part of him left over from his early teenage years that could suddenly, vividly relive that familiar, pleasant, horrid dipping sensation in the pit of his stomach. That night, camped outside the glen on a bed of moss and logs, Sven snoring behind him, he felt alone and unfulfilled for the first time in years. Love was knowing someone, love was unexpected, he unflatteringly mimed, a sourness pervading his mood. Nothing good ever happened unexpectedly and nothing good ever came from knowing someone, so he could only imagine nothing good came from love either.

And then, like a sudden fork in the road, or a thin spot in the ice, Anna happened like some force of nature, a storm that blows in unexpectedly and completely disrupts the best laid plans. He didn't think a single thing of her when he saw her in that trading post. She wasn't Anna to him then. Like a blind man walking past a rainbow, never even knowing it was there, he pushed past the strange girl in the ridiculous dress, filled with fret about the weather, wondering what he was going to do with the load of ice in his sleigh, who would want ice in the winter? But it wasn't winter, it was summer, which made it all the more painful and unusual and stressful and singed the normally long wick of his temper to the quick. Before he knew it, his mouth had gotten him into trouble and he'd found himself face down in the same snow that had sent him inside the trading post, rear ungracefully pointed towards the sky and choice words for the goofy brute who'd roughly kicked him out spilling into the powder covering his face.

By some insane stroke of luck, though that was not at all how he'd thought of it then, he'd gotten another chance when she'd barreled into the shed not even an hour or so later. There was nothing overt about her that grabbed his attention, other than her pure existence, the fact that she, obviously not a girl form the mountainside, was standing before him, in full winter garb, in the middle of nowhere. She was not like the market girl. If Anna was a season, she was summer at its peak, all verdant and cheery, a palette of warm greens, reds, and yellows. There was nothing cold about her all, nothing aloof, except perhaps the mysterious, thin white streak that curled and twisted through one of her twin braids, a stark contrast to the red-pepper color of the rest of her hair. Her blue eyes were clear summer lakes, the freckles peppering her nose and cheeks like pebbles upon a beach, and both seemed to radiate a sweltering glow as she spoke, articulating each word with a rapid gesture, a flurry of movement that made him initially quite uncomfortable, but also strangely intrigued.

Anna was unlike any other person he'd ever met, man or woman. The distance separating him from everyone else didn't seem to exist with her, mostly because she didn't allow any. Where he walked, she followed close behind, small boots carefully finding the depressions of his larger ones, mouth always moving. She talked almost endlessly as they made their way across the snowy landscape, about anything that came to mind. He imagined her as the kind of girl who couldn't keep secrets, not out of malcontent, but simply out of some strange desire to share. In a strange way, she reminded him of his younger troll siblings, always bouncing and rolling about, eager to be with him, always vying for his attention. He found he kind of liked her constant rambling, the symphonic backdrop to the silent winter world they were wandering through. She made him laugh and he found he liked that too, though he liked it even better when he made her laugh. This wasn't the market girls' pernicious snickers. When Anna laughed, it was genuine, from her belly, hearty and loud and sometimes accompanied by a light snort.

By the end of their second day together, he felt as if he had known her all of his life. She played with her braids when she felt nervous or scared, which wasn't all that often. She had a bad habit of not looking where she was going when she was talking. Twice, she'd ran right into him. The first, she'd fallen over backwards into the snow. The second time, he'd caught her and he'd learned that she smelled of cinnamon and allspice, that her grip was actually pretty strong, and that there were light blue, almost white, flecks in her eyes and he'd fallen into them like swimming pools. He hadn't been so tongue-tied since his encounter with the market girl, and he winced when he began to apologize in halting sentence fragments, righting her quickly, brushing off some stray snow from her magenta cape, waiting for her judgement to fall swiftly. But, he learned another thing about her in that moment, when she began to apologize in much the same manner, stumbling over her words just as much as her feet, until she began to laugh in that beautiful, authentic chord he was finding himself starting to love.

That night, camped just below the north mountain, the presence of her sister all around them and above them, he watched her snore into Sven's side, a light trail of drool making a path between the corner of her lips and her chin and felt the first crack in the icy veneer he'd built around himself.

It would be many months later, when they were enjoying those first comfortable weeks after settling into their relationship, that he told her about this revelation. Curled in her bed, perhaps not the most appropriate of situations, she turned closer into his side, an arm lazily draped over his stomach, a leg hooked around his knee, and said bluntly that she hadn't expected this but that she loved it all the same. And Kristoff, content and warm and thoroughly and happily disgusted with his newfound sentimentality, kissed the top of her now fully auburn head and spilled his guts to her, about how he felt when she first melted into him and how he had wished that he had met her sooner, that he had caught her eye instead of that damned prince, and how he perilously wanted to be the one who would kiss her and thaw her frozen heart.

He couldn't remember if the lantern died on its own or if she had helped kill the light, but he was distinctly aware of the darkness and Anna's boldness as she fell upon him, her touch rather desperate and her kiss forceful. What are you doing? He choked out as he felt the full length of her body pressed against him, narrow hip and small breasts, hands running through his hair.

You're quite eloquent for an ice harvester, she whispered against his mouth and something stirred inside of him, deep within his gut, a pitching feeling like being on the prow of a ship in churning waters.

He was very surprised when she freed him from his pants, warm fingers curling around his already hardened length. He'd been a fly on the wall long enough to hear every nasty little detail from the ice harvesters about the bedroom activities between men and women, but he had never done anything like this before. A curious part of him wished the lantern was still lit so he could see her head as it lowered to his lap, though the sensation of her lips and her tongue swallowing him was quickly engraved into his being.

Wait, he began, because while her ministrations were proving amazing, he couldn't help but feel something unchivalrous about letting her pleasure him with her mouth, Anna, just wait, oh boy. She stubbornly continued, a small hand sliding up beneath the hem of his tunic along the skin of his flat stomach, the swell of his muscled chest, fingers curling and nails scraping as she pulled it back, all the while continuing to suckle on him. Eyes adjusting to the dim light, he could just barely see the shadow of her figure poised above his hips.

Do you love me? She asked a moment later, letting her free hand continue her mouth's work.

Yes, he said without hesitation, pushing her backwards so that he lay above her, facing the foot of her bed. He carefully found her face in the darkness, fingers ghosting over the warm expanse of her cheek, before lowering his lips to hers, letting the electricity of kissing her flow through him and fill him. He'd helped her remove her clothes then, and she helped him remove his, until there was nothing between them but their own flesh.

Yes, I love you, he thought as he pushed a hand between her supple thighs, even if you're not the girl I thought I'd love, even if everything was...unexpected. He couldn't suppress his smile at the thought, his grin curving into the soft swell of her breast as he sunk his fingers inside of her, drawing a raw gasp from her throat.

It was their first time making love that night, and it hadn't exactly gone smoothly, but they'd learned quickly enough what the other needed, wanted, how their bodies fit together the best and when she'd came against him, that signature warmth of hers a scorching heat pressed into him and burning inside of him, he thought he might know what his mother had meant all those years ago.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the tenth Frozen fic I've written, but the first one I've posted. Kristoff is my favorite Disney prince (or prince-to-be) EVER and the lack of backstory considering the complexity of his character has just driven me up the wall with inspiration. Also, Kristanna gives me so many feels, probably too many feels, as I have been obsessively devising little plot bunnies for these two since seeing the movie right after Thanksgiving. Also, sorry if I might have misled any of you into thinking this might have been a Kristoff/Elsa/Anna triangle plot. I just really don't ship Kristelsa at all and it made me so happy that they didn't put these two together just because 'ermagerd they both totes love ice n stuff'. This probably could be better, but we all know how it goes sometimes, you just need to post something to finish up writing all that other stuff for crying out loud.


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